I recently purchased the D800. At my home and on location I always shot tethered with my D200. I own an old laptop, but it was fast enough to check the sharpness. Well, as expected, the D800 has huge files and my laptop is not usable anymore.
My question, how are you checking the sharpness on location?
I shoot people, therefore the eyes need to be sharp.
The suggestion 'buying a new laptop' is a good one, but I don't have the money at this moment, and I think not all photographers use a laptop to check the sharpness.
i have shot with this camera long enough to know its capabilities. In good light with any of my lenses i have 100% confidence and really chimp. In poor light or low light situations I will chimp more. The best way to determine this is to turn up your in camera sharpness to 4 or 5 this will give yo a realistic idea if you nailed focus. It is not always 100% but i also take multiple photos of the same scene. My hit rate using AF-C is close to 85-90%. I will also use live view when I have time and I am shooting stationary portraits or family photos. This increases the hit rate to close to 100%.
Bruce, thank you for your answer. I shoot models and can't take too much time shooting and checking every pose, without losing the moment. Normally my MUA checks the sharpness behind the laptop.
I tried a few stationery objects, but the AF is not something I'm willing to trust blindly yet. Turning the sharpness to 5 is an option.
Is your laptop too slow in reading the D800-files or in processing.
I found out that ViewNX uses the embedded JPG for displaying the files and when you click on the image you get instantly the 100% enlargement. This is good enough for me for checking sharpness and worth a (quick) try.
BTW I turned up the in camera sharpness as well as Bruce suggested.
1) To quickly get into 100% view on the built-in monitor.
For some, it is convenient to press the center button in the multiselector and jump immediately to 100%. How to get there:
Change menu f2 (Multi selector center switch) to playback mode, Zoom on/off, and medium resolution.
With this option setting, each press on the butten will turn on (or off) 100% view. Quick and easy for a check. Please consider the impact of your JPEG setting. This feature is relying on the selection of JPEG size and storage compression and might be less sharp at JPEG (small/basic) vs. JPEG (large/fine). Your RAW file might then be a bit better.
2) quickly check multiple faces in an image
If after image capture, you switch to 100% view (i.e. via the method above), you can let the camera jump from one face to the next in the same image. Thanks to a decent face recognition. Doesn't work perfect all the the time, but still helpful. It is also very helpful to check the facial expession of multiple people in a photo (and be able to redo it quickly). Imho, this is faster than the notebook check.
@Chris: my laptop is too old (slow) to render a full-size image from a RAW file. I didn't try real tethering yet, I still have to upgrade to LR 4.2, but the files I tried to render on my main PC (also not very new) took a while. I have never tried to shoot RAW+JPG and maybe the JPG file is usable to check the sharpness. I shall need to test it.
@ AndreasE: nice trics. I have never shot JPEG files, but setting the JPEG sharpness has an influence on the preview if I'm not mistaken. Shall try it.
1) To quickly get into 100% view on the built-in monitor.
For some, it is convenient to press the center button in the multiselector and jump immediately to 100%. How to get there:
Change menu f2 (Multi selector center switch) to playback mode, Zoom on/off, and medium resolution.
With this option setting, each press on the butten will turn on (or off) 100% view. Quick and easy for a check. Please consider the impact of your JPEG setting. This feature is relying on the selection of JPEG size and storage compression and might be less sharp at JPEG (small/basic) vs. JPEG (large/fine). Your RAW file might then be a bit better.
2) quickly check multiple faces in an image
If after image capture, you switch to 100% view (i.e. via the method above), you can let the camera jump from one face to the next in the same image. Thanks to a decent face recognition. Doesn't work perfect all the the time, but still helpful. It is also very helpful to check the facial expession of multiple people in a photo (and be able to redo it quickly). Imho, this is faster than the notebook check.
@Chris: my laptop is too old (slow) to render a full-size image from a RAW file. I didn't try real tethering yet, I still have to upgrade to LR 4.2, but the files I tried to render on my main PC (also not very new) took a while. I have never tried to shoot RAW+JPG and maybe the JPG file is usable to check the sharpness. I shall need to test it.
@ AndreasE: nice trics. I have never shot JPEG files, but setting the JPEG sharpness has an influence on the preview if I'm not mistaken. Shall try it....Show more →
The preview shows the jpeg version of the file so it will indeed show adjustments to your picture style settings such as sharpness. I have my sharpness set to 5 for checking critical focus on location.
@Chris: my laptop is too old (slow) to render a full-size image from a RAW file. I didn't try real tethering yet, I still have to upgrade to LR 4.2, but the files I tried to render on my main PC (also not very new) took a while. I have never tried to shoot RAW+JPG and maybe the JPG file is usable to check the sharpness. I shall need to test it.
@ AndreasE: nice trics. I have never shot JPEG files, but setting the JPEG sharpness has an influence on the preview if I'm not mistaken. Shall try it....Show more →
You don't have to shoot RAW+JPG for that, just RAW.
ViewNX 2 is free downloadable and it will take you about 15 minutes to install and try if it suit your needs.
LR4.2 is very slow and I changed my workflow a little and only import images with 1:1 preview after selected in ViewNX. Others will be imported at minimum preview (or deleted ).
Set the camera to zoom in to 100% at the focus point when you hit the centre button. You may need to set the sharpness a bit higher in picture styles to be able to really see it on the tiny screen - this has no effect on your RAWs.
Mark_L wrote:
Set the camera to zoom in to 100% at the focus point when you hit the centre button. You may need to set the sharpness a bit higher in picture styles to be able to really see it on the tiny screen - this has no effect on your RAWs.
Ooh ooh, missed this trick. Where's the menu setting for this please?
Chris Dees wrote:
You don't have to shoot RAW+JPG for that, just RAW.
To clarify.
If the camera is set to RAW only, the preview JPEG embedded in the RAW is stored in the quality setting as set in the camera before "RAW only" is selected.
So, if the camera is set to store RAW and the JPEG was fine/large, then the embedded JPEG (as the source for the preview on the monitor) will be large and in good quality. If the JPEG setting is small/basic, the ability to verify sharpness through the embedded JPEG is a bit more limited.
To repeat the key point: This is for those cases when the camera is storing a RAW only.
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